


Moths

by eruthiel



Category: MarsCorp (Podcast), The Bunker (Podcast)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Parallel Universes, Post-Apocalypse, Radio, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 23:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eruthiel/pseuds/eruthiel
Summary: They sound like they've been alone together for a while. They're... strange, there's no doubt about it, but they don't seem dangerous or evencompletelyunhinged.





	Moths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolfsmilch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsmilch/gifts).



> Title sorta from [Kamikaze by Susanne Sundfør](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpykeGxba7M), which is really a Colin/Marsvid song, but ye. [ _and you take me back / I'm your kamikaze_ ]
> 
> This crossover has been in the collective consciousness since time immemorial, but mainly check out [this post](https://headofscience.tumblr.com/post/159862236513/smegandtheheads-headofscience-the-thing-no). I really wanted to blast it all out in one go, but I have some unexpected life bullshit to deal with so I hope you enjoy this for now, and I'll finish it as soon as I possibly can xxx

The sun keeps a hungry watch over the Wasteland. A few towers which have yet to finish crumbling are swallowed in their own noonday shadows, while the rubble at their feet slumps ever deeper into itself. The air is still, and hot, and dry. 

Reptiles scatter deeper into their hiding places as  _ something _ splits the quiet. It comes from beneath the ground, a sound of rushing air, or water being sucked into a vacuum, all wrapped in a tone like the ring of a bell. The reverberations of this otherworldly note take a long time to fade. Then, for a moment, everything is still again, and then there comes a scratching. Beneath a collapsed building, something is moving, working at the door which has rusted in place.

For a few minutes this work continues in spurts; the agent responsible keeps breaking off to catch his breath. He coaxes the door in a soft, wheedling voice before throwing his weight against it once more. Finally it bursts off its hinges, catches the sun as it flies into the air, and crashes in the dirt a few feet away.

A figure pulls himself out of the darkness and stands in the Wasteland, panting, shielding his eyes. He wears heavy boots and a battered lab coat over a blue jumpsuit, with a satchel slung across his broad shoulders. His clothes, bag, and the plasma gun in his hand are like nothing seen here for almost a hundred years.

Soon the stranger's eyes adjust to the brightness. He lowers his hand from his face, which is handsome in a non-threatening, everyman sort of way – this face doesn't inspire double-takes, but it's driven many people slowly crazy. It's framed by thick, wavy hair which was last cut perhaps half a year ago, and which started to show signs of greying perhaps a week ago.

The stranger looks around, half-heartedly brandishing his gun before holstering it beneath his coat. He trudges about for a bit, stepping on the defeated door as he goes, but finds no signs of life besides a few distant bird screams. By now the towers are providing a few feet of shade apiece, and so he settles, legs crossed, at the base of the nearest one. He sighs at the cool metal on his back. He takes off his bag and unpacks some ration packs, which he sets aside before reaching back into the bag. This time he brings out two pieces of equipment, which he sets side by side in the dirt.

The device he turns to first is a Baby's First Environmental Hazard Detector with a Happiness Inc. logo on its pink plastic casing. What it has to tell him is not quite reassuring, but neither is it cause for immediate panic, so he puts it away (but not before setting it to auto-alert) and turns instead to the radio.

The radio is conspicuously  _ not _ a Happiness Inc. product. It's made of dull metal and held together in places by masking tape. With some difficulty, the stranger extends its aerial and adjusts its settings, before placing it carefully atop a nearby lump of concrete to see what it can pick up. He reaches for a ration pack and peels it open, then sits back to eat while the radio cycles through layers of static, searching for a signal.

For a while, it seems this world is dead after all, or at least that the locals have forgotten how to broadcast. The stranger's head snaps up when he finally hears something other than hiss – a woman's voice, speaking what might be English, though it's too faint and too fuzzy to make out words. Almost as soon as the voice arrives, it's gone again. The stranger curses and drops his rations to hammer at the buttons, scanning back and forth, but it doesn't come back. Cursing again, he gives up and finishes his lunch while the radio continues its automated search.

His irritation doesn't last long in the face of relief and excitement – there are people here! Civilised people! Well, people who know how to use a radio transmitter, at least. From the look of the ruined buildings, they may even be humanoid, but he's seen enough by now to know that's probably just wishful thinking. Even if the species that built this city was human, something terrible clearly happened to them. Who knows how long it's been since then, and what might have become of the survivors?

The stranger has long since finished his lunch and settled down for a doze in the afternoon sun when the radio picks up another signal. Not faint or fuzzy this time. It's music, loud music, human-sounding music, twenty-first century music, with synthesisers and a relaxed beat and a swooping, melancholic melody. He jerks awake and scrambles over to lock in the frequency. Just as he does so, the song comes to an end. For two seconds of silence, the stranger wonders if it was only in his head.

Then there's a voice. It speaks fast, in English, with an accent not unlike the stranger's own. It sounds like an adult human male, but again he reminds himself not to get his hopes up. It's amazing, the variety of anatomical configurations across the multiverse that speak English.

"That was Slim Tower by Porcelain Hole. A poignant reminder of carefree days gone by, before our world consumed itself in flame; not like a phoenix, but like an ordinary bird that leaves behind only soot and charred, hollow bones. Coming up later, we've got more music and an interview from the before times, plus! Your monthly horoscopes. But first: this."

The stranger sits and listens, mouth slightly agape, as another voice seeps from the speaker. It's much softer and slower, and sounds like an adult human female. She has an accent he recognises from home, but can place only dimly within his studies of Earth culture: American, or maybe Canadian? The Wasteland melts away as they sit there together, the stranger and this unseen, unknown woman who speaks with so much patience and authority, this spectral voice from a world long dead.

"What would a perfect society look like? Writers have been putting forward their blueprints since at least the fourth century BC, when Plato's  _ Republic _ detailed an imaginary city ruled by wise and just philosopher kings. Since then, there have been thousands of books claiming to provide a glimpse of the ideal civilisation. And of course, they're all wildly different from each other. In the fifteen hundreds, Sir Thomas More coined the name that has come to encompass  _ all _ these competing visions of a better world:  _ Utopia _ ."

Plato, More!  _ Earth! _ The stranger knows that things have a way of repeating themselves in the unlikeliest places, but for the first time he allows himself to conclude that this universe must be more similar than different to his own. He zones out for a minute, his mind racing with the implications. When he zones back in, the lecture is still going at the same relaxed pace.

"The map had very few blank spaces left in which to hide remote islands and forgotten kingdoms. And so Utopia had to be relocated; distance in space was replaced with distance in time. The perfect society no longer exists a thousand miles away today, but right here at home – only a thousand years in the future. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, what we would later come to call science fiction..."

Not for the first time, the stranger congratulates himself for having taken the trouble to engage with the Earth literature of his own universe before he left. Almost nobody back home thought it was worth preserving, let alone consuming, but he always knew it would come in handy.

The stranger is pondering how to get in touch with the survivor (survivors?) responsible for this bizarre broadcast when the lecture comes to an end. Then, a few more seconds of silence are followed by another man's voice. He's similar to the one before, but softer and clumsier, less sure of himself. His smile sounds brighter but more brittle.

"You're listening to The Bunker, humanity's best and only remaining radio show. A solitary beacon of light in this darkness! I hope you're enjoying the show, maybe with a few chunks of spit-roasted mutant meat around the bonfire? Whatever you Wastelanders like to eat."

The first man is back, and he says: "I shudder to think, Dave! It must be tough, having to hunt, gather or scavenge all your own food just to survive from one day to the next, never knowing where your next meal might come from!"

"It can't be worse than tinned gelatin over and over again, day after day after day." A third man? How many survivors are running this joint? What kind of post-apocalypse is this?

The second man pipes up again, and the conversation immediately descends into bickering. The stranger listens closely to confirm that, yes, there are only three of them – a close-knit group, though far from affectionate; they sound like they've been alone together for a while. They're... strange, there's no doubt about it, but they don't seem dangerous or even  _ completely _ unhinged.

New friends. The stranger flashes a practice smile at nobody. It's been a while since he had new friends like these.


End file.
